Net Positive Symposium at the R.W. Kern Center 2019

Join us for networking, cocktails and appetizers prior to the opening night keynote and dinner! 

Leaders from three diverse colleges/universities share their expertise and experience transforming their campuses using the Living Building Challenge and Living Community  Challenge. Amanda Sturgeon will moderate an engaging and thoughtful discussion exploring how they have been able to move the needle on innovation toward a regenerative, sustainable, responsible, and Living Future on their campuses. They will share stories from their own experiences and tips for others on how to build consensus, buy in, and momentum within complex organizations of higher education to take on the commitment and challenge to lead the way. They will show they have been and how all colleges and universities can answer the call of Greta Thunberg and other youth climate activists for the adults of today to take real and impactful action. Their voice, vision, dedication, experience, perspective, and expertise will both be inspiring and educational.

Campus construction projects using healthier materials have become both leading-edge and attainable, as a growing data reservoir, increased market pressure and refined processes have slashed the required time and effort by two thirds. Along with fostering a brighter future for all, creating healthier buildings offers novel educational opportunities; a fresh, values-driven initiative that excites donors; and a framework to draw in and engage diverse constituencies.

We begin with the “why” of focusing on materials, including the ways healthier buildings underscore an institution’s social justice message, burnish school brand and reputation, provide more productive workplaces to work and reduce amortized building costs, including lowering remediation costs for renovations or at end of life.

The “how” of healthier materials examines pitching greener buildings to decision makers, maintaining healthy materials buy-in from owners and teams and shrinking the materials palette within and among projects (including how this is beneficial and how to do it). An overview of making the best material choices presents simple strategies for incorporating healthier building materials, explores top product categories for the largest impact, identifies specific healthy building products and where to find more, and explains reasons for using specs as the basis for a transition to healthier materials.

For a Living Building, the project isn’t over once the building is complete. Owners of Living Buildings are uniquely positioned to share their transformative spaces with others, offering a gateway into the LBC community for all. A powerful educational and experiential tool, tour programs can strengthen relationships with local communities, raise awareness of engagement opportunities, and empower building occupants and visitors with a deeper level of living building systems understanding.

In this workshop, three experienced LBC guides will discuss the value, strategy, and impact of building tours, tackling questions such as: How can tours support your institutional or corporate mission? What makes a memorable tour? How do we offer effective tours with sometimes limited knowledge and resources? How can we make our tours accessible to all? What are the goals of a tour program, and how do you know if you’ve been successful? 

We’ll share how Hampshire College and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment leverage tours to strengthen the impact of their Living Building Challenge projects: as part of new building-based research and curriculum, as a component of community outreach and K-12 education, and as a way to involve people in the construction process. Participants will learn how to design tours based on learning theory and proven engagement strategies, including hands-on activities, participatory problem-solving, and digital content. We’ll then invite you to develop a concept plan for your own project tour, offering support and feedback based on our experience. Each participant will leave with a plan to implement a unique, effective, and value-added tour program for their own project or site.

It's no secret that college and university campuses are heavy energy users with high greenhouse gas emissions (spoiler alert – it's the buildings). The urgency of the climate crisis and student activism, together with rising operating costs have driven many colleges and universities to adopt institutional climate commitments that require bold actions to reduce or eliminate their carbon impacts in just a few short decades. This will require significant changes to how we heat, cool, and power our buildings.

Join a discussion of the programs, projects, and plans they are putting in place to achieve their planned reductions. They'll talk through their explorations of net zero energy, decarbonization, carbon-free electricity, fossil-fuel-free, and more, to show how similar carbon reduction goals can be achieved by wildly differing strategies and by institutions of varying sizes and means. Along the way, they'll share the easy wins and tough calls that went into their latest initiatives (such as on-site solar, off-site solar, fuel switching, and electrification).

• Understand how different colleges and universities approach "decarbonization" or "carbon neutrality"
• Articulate options for renewable and carbon-free electricity supply
• Evaluate options for carbon-free heating systems
• Identify strategies for making and keeping bold climate commitments

In addition to water scarcity, drivers to consider water reuse now include aging or inadequate infrastructure, resiliency, resource recovery, green-building initiatives (LBC/LEED) and increasing costs for conventional water and sewer. Onsite or distributed systems are located closer to the source and point of use making it more efficient to recover and reuse both the water and embedded energy.  

Case studies will be reviewed including The New School University (NYC) and the redevelopment of Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus (Mountain View, California). The New School University represents an urban academic application of direct non-potable water reuse within the University Center. This system requires a very high level of treatment in a very small footprint with membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology for flushwater, cooling and laundry reuse. The Microsoft campus incorporates a wetland treatment system that addresses the Living Building Challenge water petal objectives for non-potable water. These projects are a testament to the evolution of distributed systems over the last few decades including changes in regulations, technology and project delivery methods along with the integration of our water and energy infrastructure. This presentation will focus on drivers for these projects, benefits, key challenges, lessons learned, financial drivers/solutions and a discussion as to how the elements of these projects can be replicated at other universities and campuses.

Participants will learn how these approaches can:
• Reduce total water consumption by 50 to 95% and 100% non-potable water use reduction along with associated application to the Living Building Challenge process
• Reduce wastewater discharges and waste loads by 60 to 100%
• Reduce environmental impacts from Combined Sewer Overflows
• Reduce nutrient and chemical loads to water bodies
• Incorporate energy recovery with economical operations that uses the waste as a resource, provides treatment at the source and yields a favorable Life Cycle Cost and Life Cycle Assessment.

A variety of people both inside and outside of higher education have been increasingly working on creating a more equitable built environment that works for all community members.  The Living Building Challenge and Living Community Challenge both have an equity petal that has helped to spur and shape that conversation.  One early lesson is that equity in the built environment hinges on equity of process, on hearing the voices of all, including those in traditionally underrepresented groups.  The feedback and decision making structures in higher education - and the building design and construction process - need adjustments to fulfill the promise of equity.  In our work as part of the building process at Williams, we’ve developed lots of questions and thoughts about equity of process and have piloted a variety of techniques, but we are far from having all of the answers.  This session is intended to be a working session where the facilitators will frame the issue and lead discussions and activities to address the following questions:

1. What voices do we struggle to hear and engage in our existing processes?
2. How can we physically get underrepresented stakeholders in to the room for meetings and discussions?
3. How can we structure meetings and discussion to bring out and hear voices that are frequently minimized or marginalized?
4. What tools can we use beyond in-person meetings and discussions to gather concerns, feedback and questions in an equitable and transparent way?

We also hope to demonstrate some innovative discussion and meeting structures during this session as a way of building attendees’ tool-kits for equitable discussions.

The campus setting provides a unique opportunity to shift the paradigm of how humans relate to water. Net Positive Water is more than a simple water budget that balances the demands of people and place. Decentralized water harvesting, treatment, and recycling infrastructure can be implemented using a regenerative approach that creates abundance, resiliency and equity; heals conflict between the built and natural environment; and inspires a multitude of minds to think about our place in the world differently. Through an overview of design considerations, technical strategies, and project examples, participants will learn how we can design integrated water systems that restore the integrity of nature and our relationship with it.

Come explore the R.W. Kern Center, one of just 23 certified Living Buildings in the world.

We’ll lift the lid on the composting toilets, check in on the rooftop solar, and see how we keep tabs on where the electricity goes. Check out the greywater system to learn how wastewater is filtered via the building's indoor plants and sent outdoors to a constructed wetland. See how rainwater is collected, filtered, and treated to make drinking water. We'll also take look at the finishes and materials that make up a Living Building, and some clever and puzzling details you might miss on a casual walk-through. This tour is an authentic account of what makes our Living Building tick- the challenges, setbacks, and successes.

Research from Harvard University faculty and other scientists has clearly shown the danger of certain chemicals of concern, yet these chemicals are pervasive throughout many common building materials.  Some of the most effective interventions for enhancing the health, productivity and well-being of people in the built environment can be achieved with healthier building materials and products. Harvard University to using its campus as a testbed to translate science into practice to develop scalable solutions for a healthier built environment. Come learn about Harvard’s transferable approach, best practices and lessons learned that can be leveraged and applied in your built environment work to benefit human and planetary health.  

The Hitchcock Center for the Environment is home to the 23rd Certified Living Building in the world and the 4th in Massachusetts. It is a powerful teaching tool that supports a new approach to achieving environmental literacy in the 21st century. The net zero energy building harvests and recycles its own water and is designed to model systems in nature. It uses composting toilets, and was constructed with responsibly sourced, nontoxic materials. Come find out what makes the building a special teaching tool empowering visitors to ask, “what does sustainability look like in the built environment and in my community?”

Regenerative Design stands above mere sustainability by suggesting that reaching balance, in the face of global climate change and the social inequity that accompanies it, is no longer enough. It suggests that we must instead restore each Place we encounter to a condition of wholeness. Seeing nature as inspiration is a key step in restoring our buildings, neighborhoods, communities, and cities to their full potential.

To leverage nature, a critical shift in philosophy is taking place. The built environment is no longer simply a “machine for living” as we have been taught by our modernist, international-style roots. Instead, a new notion of shared and intensely local habitat for people is coming into focus; one that is informed by the simple truth that WE ARE NATURE.

The Living Building at Georgia Tech is a partnership between The Kendeda Fund, Georgia Tech, Lord Aeck Sargent and The Miller Hull Partnership, and Skanska to build what is expected to become the most environmentally advanced education and research building ever constructed in the Southeast. Designing a successful Living Building project is by necessity a collaborative and integrated endeavor. The partnership represents a shared commitment between all of the parties to lead, educate and transform in the areas of ecology and regenerative buildings, and create opportunities for replicability for other building owners, designers and constructors.  Join us as we share the collective experience of designing a Living Building Challenge project in the hot, humid climate of the southeastern United States. Representatives from GT, Lord Aeck Sargent and Skanska will discuss the design and construction process and specifically note “what they wish they had known before they started.”  Presented in an interactive format, the panel will discuss what it means to work in an open, collaborative design environment, tell a few stories from the trenches and allows ample time for audience questions to the panel.

A round table of veteran Living Building Makers reflect on how the Living Building Challenge has changed them and their work - touching on the obstacles and opportunities going forward.Deep sustainability goals increase workforce and leadership interest, commitment, enthusiasm and resourcefulness. By gathering as construction and trade veterans of two Living Building projects at two inspired institutions, the panelists will present briefly and then engage in questions and discussion among the panelists and with the session participants. Themes will include building cooperation, problem solving, and inspirational take-aways going forward, along with a generous helping of real time stories!  Presenters include mechanical contractor, electrical contractor, project management staff and the timber design / fabricator for the R.W. Kern Center.

Light snacks/coffee + tea provided

Book Signing:
LIVING BUILDING MAKERS: Creating Sustainable Buildings That Renew Our World
 
by Jonathan A. Wright.


Living Building Makers is a handcrafted collection of stories celebrating the people who bring the built environment to life. Each story captures the insights, creativity, and discoveries of the often unsung individuals - builders, tradespeople, designers, engineers, educators, craftspeople, and owners – who rolled up their sleeves to play a part in creating two of the greenest buildings in the world that stand on the campus of Massachusetts’ renowned Hampshire College.

Builder, poet, storyteller, and modern-day Renaissance man Jonathan A. Wright takes readers from the drafting table to the job site and into the lives of the makers who plied their skills wholeheartedly and, in turn, experienced unexpected personal and professional growth. The book enables a deeper understanding of the issues facing the environment through the creation of the R.W. Kern Center and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment , as well as the aspirational nature of the world's greenest building standard, the Living Building Challenge.

Wright balances storytelling with truth-telling distilled from his unique perspective and faithful connection to the buildings, colleagues, and the college he holds dear. Focusing on the trades but including the cadre of professionals who influenced these remarkable projects at every stage, Wright’s tales take readers into the daily routines of the makers whose pride in their work lives on long after construction is complete. Living Building Makers will be available in the Spring of 2019.

This interactive session builds on the topics introduced in Wednesday’s Keynote Panel and no doubt came up throughout a variety of the day’s sessions – specifically how to we get started and build momentum overtime for deep commitments and bold actions. Moderated by two leaders at their respective institutions, Williams College and Brown University, this working session is a time to ask questions of the facilitators and other participants, to explore solutions to common problems, learn from one another, and identify opportunities for collaboration moving forward.

How do you build consensus, buy in, and momentum within complex organizations of higher education to take on the commitment and challenge to lead the way to a Living Future? Come share your stories and solutions and ask your questions. Together we can find the way.

This interactive session will frame the Living Future Collaborative of New England as a network by considering human driven activity infused with biological solutions. Using biomimetic models as a source of possible network structures, the facilitators will open up some intriguing possibilities for what we do and how we work together to create more Living Buildings and Living Communities in the Northeast.

The moderators will facilitate a conversation based on the network models presented with the aim to derive a new model for working together, determining where we can go and the support system we can develop all building towards a living future.

This interactive session will focus on the Living Building Challenge’s Materials Petal, featuring deep engagement on topics of particular interest to participants. There will be a mix of large and small group discussion formats to ensure focus on individual interests, as well as collaborative wisdom-gathering. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and offer solutions in order to develop measurable goals for their campus, understand best practices to incorporate healthier materials in all campus projects, and learn ways to overcome typical barriers.

This interactive session is an opportunity for participants to learn from seasoned professionals and each other how to get move their campuses toward Net Positive Water, Carbon, and Energy.  Whether your campus is just formulating commitments, starting implementation, or well on your way this session will provide inspiration and information to go to the next level toward true carbon neutrality, net positive energy, and sustainable water systems. Moderated by two leaders in the field that have worked with numerous higher education institutions to help them set and meet ambitious leadership goals, this working session is a time to ask questions of the facilitators and other participants, to explore solutions to common problems, learn from one another, and identify opportunities for collaboration moving forward.  Join this panel to create a road map to a Living Future on your campus.